"Mastiff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Bismarck, bellowing like a mastiff, set up the cry that if William accepted that democratic crown out of the Frankfort gutter, Prussia would become involved in civil war. And it was a fact! The old-line Prussian military aristocracy ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... missed his tackle, and the full shock came on Dickson. He aimed at what he thought was the enemy's throat, found only an arm, and was shaken off as a mastiff might shake off a toy terrier. He made another clutch, fell, and in falling caught his opponent's leg so that he brought him down. The man was immensely agile, for he was up in a second and something hot and bright blew into Dickson's face. The pistol bullet had passed through ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... before a stranger might, from without, have witnessed a fair and youthful female figure swiftly descend the stairs into the hall, and, throwing her arms around the neck of the returned traveller, greet her with an affectionate salute. A large, grey mastiff now appeared from the rear of the building, and, while the driver was removing sundry parcels from the carriage, took a few slow and solemn turns about the knoll, then, on the departure of man and vehicle, retired ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... venome about 4 roddes from him, as by woeful experience it was proved on the bodies of a man and woman coming that way, who afterwards were found dead, being poysoned and very much swelled, but not preyed upon. Likewise a man going to chase it and as he imagined to destroy it with two mastiff dogs as yet not knowing the great danger thereof, his dogs were both killed, and he himself glad to returne with haste to preserve his own life: yet this is to be noted that the dogs were not preyed upon, but slaine and left whole, for his food is ...
— The History and Antiquities of Horsham • Howard Dudley
... superiority—the glory of the victor in the Grecian games, or the modern pugilist with the champion's belt. This is the reason why men, priding themselves upon qualities in which they are equalled by any mastiff and excelled by any horse, will stand up and batter one another into a mass of blood and bruises. And if we analyze the merit of some conqueror upon a hundred battle-fields, we shall find ingredients almost as coarse. Only ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... is the almond, it is the jasmine, it is the vine which we look on as vegetable beauties. It is the flowery species, so remarkable for its weakness and momentary duration, that gives us the liveliest idea of beauty and elegance. Among animals, the greyhound is more beautiful than the mastiff, and the delicacy of a jennet, a barb, or an Arabian horse, is much more amiable than the strength and stability of some horses of war or carriage. I need here say little of the fair sex, where I believe the point will be easily allowed me. The beauty of women is considerably ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... my store; and pray, mother, ought I not to have given her the other half crown, for what she got would be of little use to her? However, I soon arrived at the mansion of my affectionate friend, guarded by the vigilance of a huge mastiff, who flew at me and would have torn me to pieces but for the assistance of a woman, whose countenance was not less grim than that of the dog; yet she with great humanity relieved me from the jaws of this Cerberus, and was prevailed on ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... his friend a slight to himself." This hint was sufficient, and wishing to make amends for her rudeness, Eugenia ere long sought the stranger, and tried to be very agreeable; but there was no affinity between them, and to Mr. Hastings, who was watching them, they seemed much like a fierce mastiff, and a spiteful cat, impatient to pounce ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... that excellent way which we had seen in your lordship's most honourable actions. Some consented to go with us, though unwillingly; but most of them ran to the pottage pot, swearing it was dinner time. We went all on board this night, except our great mastiff dog, which we could not induce to follow us, for I think he was ashamed of our cowardly behaviour. The land here is of an excellent soil, and the climate is quite healthy; the soil being full of good herbs, as mints, calamint, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... had time to master its simplest principles? Who could not see through Douglas' thin scheme to attach his fortunes to the chariot of the great but misguided Jackson? Why had Douglas leaped to the defense of Jackson in this community, like a fice coming to the aid of a mastiff? Why, if not to get a bone for his own hungry stomach? Everything in the way of a taunt, a slur, a degrading image, a mockery of youth's ambition, an attack upon obscurity trying to rise, were thrown by Wyatt at Douglas. All the ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... my grandfather frequently told a story concerning a dog which he knew, as an example of true fidelity. This animal was a mastiff that belonged to a friend, Mr. Prideaux, to whom it was a constant companion. Whenever Mr. Prideaux went out for a walk, Turk was sure to be near his heels. Street dogs would bark and snarl at the giant as his massive form attracted ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... head And hair with vipers short entwin'd, Commands wild fig-trees, once that stood By graves, and cypresses uptorn, And toads foul eggs, imbued with blood, And plume, by night-owl lately worn, Herbs too, which Iolchos and Spain Produce, renown'd for poisons dire, And bone from hungry mastiff ta'en, Straight to be burn'd in magic fire. And now the witch strode through the house, Hell-waters scattering wide around; Her hair like hedgehog's bristling rose, Or like the boar's whom hunters wound. Veia, by pity unrestrain'd, With pick-axe hastes the ground ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... worm; that he would be as loth, in wantonness, to kill a spider as if he were a kinsman to King Robert, of happy memory; that in the last quarrel before his departure he fought with four butchers, to prevent their killing a poor mastiff that had misbehaved in the bull ring, and narrowly escaped the fate of the cur that he was protecting. I will grant you also, that the poor never pass the house of the wealthy armourer but they are relieved with food and alms. ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... big mastiff and Fischer de Heischland's pair of wolf-hounds, with tails low, hair straight and smooth, heads advanced and ears erect, came ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... steps away Pasquale stood, in his best clothes and his clean shirt, for he had been one of the witnesses, and he was firmly planted on his bowed legs, his long arms hanging down by his sides; his little red eyes were fixed on Zorzi's face, his ugly jaw was set like a mastiff's, and his extraordinary face seemed cut in two by ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... Convulsed with rage at the imagined insult, he seemed ready to dart upon the arrogant censor of his actions, but the tremendous power of his fellow-chief suddenly paralyzed his arm. It was the fierce mastiff burning to rush upon the terrible bull, yet restrained by the conscious superiority of the ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... well-known English astronomer Dr. Huggins had a mastiff that bore the name of Kepler. This dog possessed many rare gifts, and amongst these was one which he was always ready to exercise for the entertainment of visitors. At the close of luncheon or dinner Kepler used to march into the room, and set himself down at his master's ...
— Harper's Young People, October 5, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... he was of little use as a companion. So I resolved to acquire a dog, and bought one from a prospector, who was stony-broke and would have sold his soul for a drink. It was an enormous Boer hunting-dog, a mongrel in whose blood ran mastiff and bulldog and foxhound, and Heaven knows what beside. In colour it was a kind of brindled red, and the hair on its back grew against the lie of the rest of its coat. Some one had told me, or I may have read it, that a ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... behind the house and a deep-throated, baying bark resounded in a threatening roar. Juno, Squire Eliot's famous mastiff, the one that had taken a prize at the dog show, bounded out toward the marauders. They turned to fly, when a stern voice ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... restoration of the French troops and their safe convoy to France, with their artillery, equipments, and cavalry. "Did the men," asks Cobbett (September 24), "who made this promise beat the Duke d'Abrantes [Junot], or were they like curs, who, having felt the bite of the mastiff, lose all confidence in their number, and, though they bark victory, suffer him to retire in quiet, carrying off his bone to be disposed of at his leisure? No, not so; for they complaisantly carry the bone for him." The ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... large, strong, and fierce-looking dog, very ugly, being of a breed between mastiff and bulldog, who at this moment entered through the glass door, and posting directly to the rug, snuffed the fresh flowers scattered there. He seemed to scorn them as food; but probably thinking their velvety petals might be convenient as litter, he was turning round preparatory to depositing ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... it will be touch and go whether he pulls it off. To call him by the name of a late poodle may just be the deciding factor. Now I hate poodles; I hate pet dogs. A Pekinese is not a pet dog; he is an undersized lion. Our puppy may grow into a small lion, or a mastiff, or anything like that; but I will not have him a poodle. If we call him Bingo, will you promise never to mention in his presence that you once had a—a—you ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... last Kerkuon grew angry, and caught Theseus round the neck, and shook him as a mastiff shakes a rat; but he could not shake him ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... So the mastiff, dozing in his kennel in the court-yard with his large head on his paws, may think of the hot sunshine when the shadows of the stable-buildings tire his patience out by changing and leave him at one time of the day no broader refuge than the shadow of his own house, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... big well-fed Mastiff with a wooden collar about his neck asked him who it was that fed him so well and yet compelled him to drag that heavy log about wherever he went. "The master," he replied. Then said the Wolf: "May no friend of mine ever be in such a plight; for the weight of this chain is enough to spoil ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... her for them! It is a very unequal contest, of course. Defeat only inspires Mrs. Colisle with a more stubborn persistence. Victory cannot lessen the sad regrets of Mrs. Belle Etoile's soul for outraged instincts and insulted taste. It is an ill match,—a strife between greyhound and mastiff, a contest at heavy draught between a thoroughbred and a Flanders mare. Mrs. Etoile knows this as well as you and I can possibly know it. She is perfectly aware of her serfdom. She is poignantly conscious of the degrading character of her servitude, and that it is not possible to gather ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... myself upon my hands and looked. The starlight was extraordinarily clear in that pure desert atmosphere, and by it I saw the face of Sergeant Quick bending over me. Also, I saw Orme sitting up, staring about him stupidly, while a great yellow dog, with a head like a mastiff, licked his hand. I knew the dog at once; it was that which Orme had bought from some wandering natives, and named Pharaoh because he ruled over all other dogs. Moreover, I knew the two camels that stood near by. So I was still on earth—unless, ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... rich, Hath a toothless mastiff-bitch, From her kennel beneath the rock Maketh answer to the clock, Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour; Ever and aye, by shine and shower, Sixteen short howls, not over loud; Some say, she ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... I done, I'd like to know, To make my master maim me so? A pretty figure I shall cut! From other dogs I'll keep, in kennel shut. Ye kings of beasts, or rather tyrants, ho! Would any beast have served you so?" Thus Growler cried, a mastiff young;— The man, whom pity never stung, Went on to prune him of his ears. Though Growler whined about his losses, He found, before the lapse of years, Himself a gainer by the process; For, being by his nature prone To fight his brethren for a bone, He'd oft come back ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... old friend in such a fury. He menaced the girl with his fists as though about to forget that she was a woman. But she did not retreat. The picture was that of the kitten and the mastiff. Her sparkling eyes followed him. The scarlet of an anger as ready as his own leaped to the ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... best; and, therefore, little Kitty was never without a friend and protector. Ever since a certain day in the summer, when she had fallen into the stream, and had been carried home insensible by Bouncer, Kitty had loved the huge mastiff dearly, and nightly added to her simple prayer, "Please, God, bless dear ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge
... prepared to defend his follower, a great ugly bulldog flew at him. With the first blow Curdie struck him through the brain and the brute fell dead at his feet. But he could not at once recover his weapon, which stuck in the skull of his foe, and a huge mastiff, seeing him thus hampered, flew at ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... his race who do not work in this ducal city seem to have lost their democratic canine sympathies, and look upon him with something of that indifferent calm with which yonder officer eyes the road-mender in the ditch below him. He loses even the characteristics of species. The common cur and mastiff look alike in harness. The burden levels all distinctions. I have said that he was generally sincere in his efforts. I recall but one instance to the contrary. I remember a young colley who first attracted my ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... rough rock he turn'd, Nor ever after thief a mastiff loos'd Sped with like eager haste. That other sank And forthwith writing to the surface rose. But those dark demons, shrouded by the bridge, Cried "Here the hallow'd visage saves not: here Is other swimming than in Serchio's wave. Wherefore if thou ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... any that answered, they all thought that they heard as if a dog came barking upon them; a dog, and a great one too, and this made the women and children afraid: nor durst they, for a while, to knock any more, for fear the mastiff should fly upon them. Now, therefore, they were greatly tumbled up and down in their minds, and knew not what to do: knock they durst not, for fear of the dog; go back they durst not, for fear the Keeper of that gate should espy them as they so went, and should be offended with them; at last ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... take a humorous view of the futile attempts of small ones to accomplish some feat beyond their strength or stature. A friend of mine once possessed a very large animal of a cross between the Mount St. Bernard dog and the English mastiff, and as remarkable for his good-nature as for his great strength and courage. Rambling out one day, accompanied by this trusty friend, they came upon a group of rustics engaged in the ignoble diversion of baiting a badger, an animal much in request among English ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... size between a tiny spaniel, such as those which are bred in Chihuahua, in northern Mexico, and the great Danes or mastiffs of northern Europe, is, perhaps, the greatest which has ever been attained in any mammal. In some cases the larger individuals belonging to the mastiff breed probably weigh nearly thirty times as much as their smaller kinsmen. Great as are these variations, they are only in form and bulk. They involve none of those curious changes in the number ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... his right knee, and held his spear with both hands at the furious beast. It was an animal of extraordinary size and power. Its eyes glittered like fire. On the turf to its right a small grey mastiff, of powerful make, lay on its back, bleeding profusely, with its body ripped open. Another dog, a fawn-coloured bitch, had seized on the left ear of the beast; but the under tusk of the boar, which was nearly a foot ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... stooped to obey the big fellow surprised us by quietly arising; and, when cushions had been arranged in a shaded place above, he laid on them as obediently as a docile mastiff. Monsieur, very much in his element, ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... hind there was Had stolen a venison-pasty on the shelf, And now did penance; him the fall half roused From dreadful nightmare; once he turned and gasped, Then straightway snored again. No other sound Within the dream-enchanted house was heard, Save that the mastiff, lying at the gate With visionary bone, snarled in his sleep. Secret as ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... to gain the vicinity of the residence without being observed, as it was now growing darker, but he was not yet halfway through the cornfield when the deep baying of a mastiff burst upon his ear, ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... The mastiff is the best of all guards; it is more pure instinct with him to guard his master's property than it is with any other breed. He is honest through and through, and as a rule he is gentle and ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... last. One of the Landfield men gets hold of the ball, and runs down hard along the touch-line. Forrester is the quarter-back that side, and gallant as the Fourth Form boy is, his big opponent runs over him as a mastiff runs over a terrier. ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... at him as a big mastiff looks at a snarling cur with a look more of pity than contempt. Then he ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... elbow with a hollow groan; and the Chief of Farms was so afraid to speak that he trembled horribly in spite of his thick shoulders and his big red eyeballs. His face, which was as snub-nosed as a mastiff's, was surmounted by a net woven of threads of bark. He wore a waist-belt of hairy leopard's skin, wherein gleamed ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... again, and played with my mastiff—gave him his supper. Made another reading to the epigram, but the turn the same. To-night at the theatre, there being a prince on his throne in the last scene of the comedy,—the audience laughed, and asked ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... now, tell everything." "I said moreover," he continued, "that I had heard that you were playing tricks on us unlettered hinds, that, instead of souls, there was nothing but crabs making a row under the carpet." "Oh, thou hell-hound! cursed knave!" cried the confessor, "but, proceed, mastiff." "And that it was a wire that turned the image of St. Peter, and that it was along a wire the Holy Ghost descended from the roodloft upon the priest." "Thou heir of hell!" cried the shriver, "Ho there, torturers, take him and cast him into that smoky chimney for tale-bearing." ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... therefore pushed forward the flesh on this part of the face so as to give an additionally sullen weight to the countenance. The lower part of the face was unusually large, muscular and heavy, and appeared to hang like a load to the head, and to make it drop like the mastiff's jowl. The upper lip was long and large, and the mouth had a severe and dogged appearance. His nose was rather small for such a face, but it was not badly shaped; his eyes, too, were small and buried deep under his protruding forehead, so indeed as to defy detection of their colour. ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... self-governing they have the utmost freedom of action, including freedom to do wrong, without any fear of Imperial interference. Of this licence the white inhabitants of the Union are making the fullest use. Like a mastiff long held in the leash they are urging the application of all the former stringent measures enacted against the blacks, and the authorities, in obedience to their electoral supporters, are enforcing these measures with the utmost ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... nevertheless performed one of the most unusual and improbable acts that we can find in the general history of life. When was this recognition of man by beast, this extraordinary passage from darkness to light, effected? Did we seek out the poodle, the collie, or the mastiff from among the wolves and the jackals, or did he come spontaneously to us? We cannot tell. So far as our human annals stretch, he is at our side, as at present; but what are human annals in comparison with the times of which we have no witness? The ...
— Our Friend the Dog • Maurice Maeterlinck
... letter and walked to the fireplace, where he took snuff copiously, while Alain eyed him like a mastiff about to spring. I broke open my letter and stooped to pick up a small enclosure which fell ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... head, and declared that her brother knew better than to let any bishop put him into leading-strings. By and by there was a great outcry among the children, and Edmund Tudor and Edward of York were fighting like a pair of mastiff-puppies because Edward had laughed at King Harry for minding what an old shaveling said. Edward, though the younger, was much the stronger, and was decidedly getting the best of it, when he was dragged off and sent into seclusion with his tutor ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Ponto," cried the poor little fellow; "don't bark, my dear." And up he went, and stroked and patted the great mastiff, who, already knowing the little fellow, put his paws on his shoulders, and licked his face with great appreciation. For Christopher was tenderly kind to animals, and he was rewarded for this now in his day of deep ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... know what was going to befall him, but he did not feel unsafe with John Farden, and besides, his lank frame was in the grasp of that big hand like a mouse in the power of a mastiff. So he let himself be hauled down the ladder, into an empty stall, where, behold, there was a dark lantern (which had been at bad work in its time), a pail, a brush, a bit of soap, and ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Fool! he had left it in his hammock! Screaming the name of his dead bride, he rushed on the jaguar, as it crouched above its prey, and seizing its head with teeth and nails, worried it, in the ferocity of his madness, like a mastiff-dog. ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... artificiality. Neither is there any cone nor cart-horses about. Why, even a tall chanticleer makes a home look homely. I do like to see a tall proud chanticleer strutting in the yard and barely giving way as I advance, almost ready to do battle with a stranger like a mastiff. So I prefer the simple old ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... worried Bough. To have the English Government smelling at your heels is no joke, thought he. Any moment the mastiff may grip, and then, if you happen to be an ex-convict and deserter from their Colonial Police, and supposing you have one or two other little things against you ... the most honest of speculators being occasionally compelled to dirty ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... made by Dot to the aforesaid baby, checked his hand when on the point of touching the infant, as if he thought he might crack it; and bending down, surveyed it from a safe distance, with a kind of puzzled pride, such as an amiable mastiff might be supposed to show, if he found himself, one day, the father of a ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... at the bottom of a big field behind the house. Nobody knew of this practice until one day the younger Charles heard sounds of violent threatening in a gruff, manly voice, and shrill calls of appeal rising in answer, and thinking that murder was being done, he unfastened a great household mastiff and raced along the field to find the tragedy of Sykes and ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... varieties occasioning alterations even in the form of the head, some of them having long, slender muzzles with a flat forehead, others having short muzzles with a forehead convex, etc., insomuch that the apparent difference between a mastiff and a water-spaniel and between a greyhound and a pugdog are even more striking than between almost any of the wild species ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... The sight of this room brought back the memory of a pretty lamplit parlour, with an old man sitting in a high-backed easy-chair: a genial matron bending over her work; two fair-faced girls; a favourite mastiff stretched full length upon the hearth; and, last of all, a young man at home from college, yawning over a sporting newspaper, weary to death of all the simple innocent delights of home, sick of the companionship of gentle sisters, the love of a fond mother, and wishing to be ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... papers. Dogs he loves with an enthusiasm to be found nowhere else in canine literature. He knows intimately all a cur means when he winks his eye or wags his tail, so that the whole barking race,—terrier, mastiff, spaniel, and the rest,—finds in him an affectionate and interested friend. His genial motto seems to run thus—"I cannot understand that morality which excludes animals from human sympathy, or releases man from the debt and obligation ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... the tempest, a cyclone passes over, a wind dies away, we replace the broken mass, we check the leak, we extinguish the fire; but what is to be done with this enormous bronze beast? How can it be subdued? You can reason with a mastiff, take a bull by surprise, fascinate a snake, frighten a tiger, mollify a lion; but there is no resource with the monster known as a loosened gun. You cannot kill it,—it is already dead; and yet it lives. It breathes a sinister ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... when, with his Chinese servant and his mastiff, he entered into possession and began the writing of the story he had in mind. It was to be the effort of his life. People reading it would forget Thackeray and everybody else, and would, furthermore, never wish to see another book. It ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... enemies thus far had disturbed him little. He had been able to anticipate most of their attacks and they had resulted in little harm to himself. They had left him unperturbed, unharmed—like the attacks of an excitable poodle upon a giant, contemptuous mastiff. ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... here where your praise might yield returns, 65 And a handsome word or two give help, Here, after your kind, the mastiff girns And the puppy pack of poodles yelp. What, not a word for Stefano there, Of brow once prominent and starry, 70 Called Nature's Ape and the world's despair For his ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... mastiff," said Flammock. "Some rude sagacity, and a stout hand instead of a sharp case of teeth, are all that I can claim to be added to them—I will do my best.—Fare thee well, Roschen! Thou art going among strangers—forget not the qualities which made thee ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... humour, the flattering, conciliating tone of the tenant's address, and the hypocritical melancholy of the Laird's reply. His grandfather, he said, had, while he spoke, his eye fixed on the rental-book, as if it were a mastiff-dog that he was afraid would ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... attention in one quarter at least. On the floor, by the arm-chair, lay a dog, a huge tawny mastiff, with body and limbs almost as big as a lion's; and this great creature rose majestically and slowly, and marched toward the little fellow with ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... sympathies. It is more of a character sketch than a short story, the incidents and characters being bound together by a common relation to Rab. From his leisurely first appearance in the story, "a huge mastiff, sauntering down the middle of the causeway, as if with his hands in his pockets," to the unanswerable last question—"His teeth and his friends gone, why should he keep the peace, and be civil?"—we follow Rab's pathetic career with the growing conviction ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... lane that runs up to the Mason farmhouse. Bock trotted on ahead—very stiff on his legs and his tail gently wagging—to interview the mastiff, and Mrs. Mason who was sitting on the porch, peeling potatoes, laid down the pan. She's a big, buxom woman with jolly, brown ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... the MASTIFF so gruff, and so surly, That the Curs scamper'd off in a sad hurly burly. "I am glad to observe that none of you dare To boast of your courage; for," said he, "to compare Your valour with mine, in vain would you strive all, My Cousin the BULL-DOG alone is my rival; We're both so ...
— The Council of Dogs • William Roscoe
... flew at Mr. Gibney's throat. The sight reminded McGuffey of a terrier worrying a mastiff. Nevertheless, Mr. Gibney was still so unnerved at the discovery of the horrible contents of the box that, despite his gigantic proportions, ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... house on wheels, of one who, whenever he takes up his quarters here, is considered the cock of the walk, the king of the place. He is a little under forty years of age, and somewhat under five feet ten inches in height. His face is wonderfully like that of a mastiff of the largest size, particularly in its jowls; his neck is short and very thick, and must be nearly as strong as that of a bull; his chest is so broad that one does not like to say how broad it is; and the voice ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow
... thither originally from China, seems to thrive particularly well in this part of the world; the little pug dog, or Dutch mastiff, which our English ladies were once so fond of, that poor Garrick thought it worth his while to ridicule them for it in the famous dramatic satire called Lethe, has quitted London for Padua, I perceive; where he is restored happily to his former honours, ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... and a cable manipulated indoors. The downstairs lights were out. The gate opened at last, a light shone through the front door, and the door opened a few inches on the chain. Pocket confronted a crevice of quilted dressing-gown and grey curls; but his mother's friend's mastiff was making night so hideous within, and trying so hard to get at his mother's son, that it was some time before he could exchange an intelligible word with the brute's mistress. It was not a satisfactory interchange then, for Miss Harbottle at first flatly refused to believe that this ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... my protection. But from henceforth you must never leave your own apartment, without my express permission, which will not soon be granted. I dare not trust your sudden repentance; and shall therefore order a mastiff to be chained to your door. Dione will bring you bread and water only. If you fail in obedience, the fate I first intended will assuredly be yours, without time given for expostulation. Now go to the room that opens into the garden; and there remain, till ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... old Mastiff bred at Dunstable, Under his Master, a most special constable, Instead of killing Reynard in a fury, Seized him for legal trial by a Jury; But Juries—AEsop was a sheriff then— Consisted of twelve Brutes and ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... no sort of animal, nor any track of beast, but once, and that seemed to be the tread of a beast as big as a mastiff dog. Here are a few small land-birds, but none bigger than a black-bird and but few ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... marks Its flight in gold and emerald sparks; And, loosened from his chain, The shaggy mastiff bounds and barks, And ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... eight weeks following the afternoon at Mrs. Wappinger's he had bestowed upon Dorothea no small measure of attention, obtaining much the same result as a mastiff might gain from his investigation of the ways of a bird of paradise. He informed himself as to her diversions and her dancing-classes, making the discovery that what other girls' mothers did for them, Dorothea was doing for herself. As far as he could see, she was bringing herself up with the aid ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... fires burnt brightly, we paid little attention to the cries of the jaguars. They had been attracted by the smell and noise of our dog. This animal (which was of the mastiff breed) began at first to bark; and when the tiger drew nearer, to howl, hiding himself below our hammocks. how great was our grief, when in the morning, at the moment of re-embarking, the Indians informed us that the dog had disappeared! There could be no doubt that ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... islands in the bay. We found here no fresh water, except by digging. There were various trees, and among these the tree producing dragon's-blood. We saw no fruit-trees, nor so much as the track of any animal, except one footstep of a beast, which seemed the size of a large mastiff. There were a few land-birds, but none bigger than a black-bird, and scarcely any sea-fowl; neither did the sea afford any fish, except tortoises and manatees,[201] both of which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... of nature' has nothing to say in the matter, and I am no more like him than a white chick is like a mastiff. But it might be so, you know, ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... taken to their long winter sleep; but the fierce catamount was still abroad, and at night the howling of the wolf-pack as it followed some hard-pressed doe or decrepit buck, reached the boys' ears. And at that day the timber-wolf of the Green Mountains—a long, lean, gray creature as big as a mastiff—was much ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... gates thrown open, and his team abroad, The ready group attendant on his word, To turn the swarth, the quiv'ring load to rear, Or ply the busy rake, the land to clear. Summer's light garb itself now cumb'rous grown, Each his thin doublet in the shade throws down; Where oft the mastiff sculks with half-shut eye, And rouses at the stranger passing by; Whilst unrestrain'd the social converse flows, And every breast Love's powerful impulse knows, And rival wits with more than rustic grace Confess the presence of ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... salutation of, 'I wish thee a good morrow, friend,' he indicated, by turning his palfrey close to one side of the path, a wish to glide past us with as little trouble as possible—just as a traveller would choose to pass a mastiff of whose peaceable intentions he is by ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... human blood. The mighty wassail horn suspended From the tough yew-bow, at Hastings bended, With wreaths of bright holly and ivy bound, Were perches for falcons that shrilly screamed, While their look with the lightning of anger gleamed, As they chided the fawning of mastiff and hound, That crouched at the feet of each peasant guest, And asked, with their ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... there. He could always detect the presence of any one in a room. He put one foot over the window sill and straddled it. His mother had told him over and over how his master would give him to the big mastiff if he ever found him "meddling." Samson had got too near the mastiff's kennel once, and had felt his terrible breath in his face. He thought about that, but he pulled in ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... a wonderful power over dogs, and he told one lady it was because he had "peeped into their hearts." A great mastiff rushed delightedly upon him one day and someone remarked how the dog loved him. "I never saw the dog before in my life," the ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... the plant had ever dared to talk to him like that. He would glare down at Fanny for a moment, like a mastiff on a terrier. Fanny, seeing his face rage-red, would flash him a cheerful and impudent smile. The anger, fading slowly, gave way to another look, so that admiration and resentment mingled ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... meditatively, took the basin of gruel onto his knees. As he sipped it, he looked a strange, little, serious ascetic, sitting there in the light from the wax candles, his shining boots planted gently on the broad back of the slumbering mastiff, his light eyes fixed on the fire. He did not speak again until he was half way through ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... having spoke, Once more upon the wretched skull his teeth He fasten'd like a mastiff's 'gainst the bone, ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... and how you used to sit on my knee; and do you remember Jason, the big mastiff, and how you used to ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... service to me when she was but sixteen. Madam Blanc, who tried to reach me in time, declares the child saved my life. It was a dog—a mad one. I was on the lawn when he broke through the hedge, snapped Alain's mastiff, Ponto, and came straight for me. I was paralyzed with terror; then, just as he leaped at me, the child swung a heavy chair over her head. Tah! She looked like a young tigress. The dog was struck helpless, his back broken. ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... where was cock-fighting, dog-fighting, bear and bull-baiting, it being a famous day for all these butcherly sports, or rather barbarous cruelties. The bulls did exceedingly well, but the Irish wolf-dog exceeded, which was a tall greyhound, a stately creature indeed, who beat a cruel mastiff. One of the bulls tossed a dog full into a lady's lap, as she sat in one of the boxes at a considerable height from the arena. Two poor dogs were killed, and so all ended with the ape on horseback, and I most heartily weary of the rude and ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... more temperate. He says that the French heroic verse "runs with more activity than strength.[57] Their language is not strung with sinews like our English; it has the nimbleness of a greyhound, but not the bulk and body of a mastiff. Our men and our verses overbear them by their weight, and pondere, non numero, is the British motto. The French have set up purity for the standard of their language, and a masculine vigor is that of ours. Like their tongue ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... him, as a mastiff might on a lion, and striking at his helm, though shorter than him by a head and shoulders, such swift and terrible blows with the broken hilt, as staggered the ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... what I am about. But you won't comfort him with Perezvon," said Smurov, with a sigh. "You know his father, the captain, 'the wisp of tow,' told us that he was going to bring him a real mastiff pup, with a black nose, to-day. He thinks that would comfort Ilusha; but ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Eileen, who spends a good deal of time with us, having no parents of her own, suggested an Old English sheep dog, explaining that it would be company for my wife when I was away from home. I coldly recommended a mastiff. ...
— Scally - The Story of a Perfect Gentleman • Ian Hay
... of the South Bridge, is a huge mastiff, sauntering down the middle of the causeway, as if with his hands in his pockets; he is old, brindled, as big as a little Highland bull, and has the Shakespearean dewlaps shaking as ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... he departed he gave me a gold piece and said that Life was nothing but vanity, and that I must pray for his soul when he was dead as he was sure it would need such help, also that I ought to put the gold piece out to interest. This I did by buying with it a certain fierce mastiff dog I coveted that had been brought on a ship from Norway, which dog bit some great man in our town, who hauled my mother before the bailiff about it and caused the poor beast to be killed, ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... grey world. Lola went to see what aid the Building could provide. In front of the door lounged the husband, a hulking porter in a Bermondsey factory. Glowering at his feet lay a vicious mongrel dog—bull-terrier, Irish-terrier, mastiff—so did Lola with her trained eye distinguish the strains. When she asked for his wife in travail the chivalrous gentleman took his pipe from his mouth, spat, and after the manner of his kind referred ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... multiply it by 8, and that gives his height at the shoulder. You try it and you'll see. A little Dog has a 2-1/4-inch foot and stands about 18 inches, a Sheep Dog with a 3-inch track stands 24 inches, and a Mastiff or any big Dog with a 4-inch track gives ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... happy beyond flattery by permitting me to think that I add something to his life. You cannot fail to like him. He is a thorough Englishman, self-relying and self-contained; a well-bred gentleman without a jot of effeminacy. Plucky as a mastiff, high-blooded as a racer, enterprising but reflective, cool, keen, and as composed as daring. Few men talk less; few by manner and conduct suggest more. One fault you will pardon, a tendency to overrate the ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... me not of that. Let me see it. Ay, ay, a good clean bite. The mastiff had sound teeth that took this out, I warrant me;" and the good doctor's sympathy seemed to run off to the quadruped ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... friend. About five o'clock Anderson faintly intimated his desire of being mounted, and Park led forward the horse as quickly as possible, in the hope of reaching Koomikoomi before night. They had only got on about a mile when they heard a noise like the barking of a huge mastiff, ending in a prolonged hiss like that of an angry cat. Park thought at first that it was a large monkey, and observed to Anderson, "what a bouncing fellow that must be," when another bark was heard nearer, and then one close at hand accompanied ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... never intended to do. It is well known that most of the trouble in life comes from our inability to compel other people to do what we think they ought, and it is true in criticism that we are unwilling to take a book for what it is, and credit the author with that. When the solemn critic, like a mastiff with a ladies' bonnet in his mouth, gets hold of a light piece of verse, or a graceful sketch which catches the humor of an hour for the entertainment of an hour, he tears it into a thousand shreds. It adds nothing to human ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... generally condemned and public feeling ran so high against the offender that people would permit dead dogs to lie on their property until the fragrance was deafening rather than employ him; and the municipal authorities suffered one bloated old mastiff to utter itself from a public square in so clamorous an exhalation that passing strangers supposed themselves to be in the vicinity of a saw-mill. My father was indeed unpopular. During these dark days the family's sole dependence was on ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... Walther has remarked it is impossible to recognise the greater number with any certainty. Youatt, however, gives a drawing of a beautiful sculpture of two greyhound puppies from the Villa of Antoninus. On an Assyrian monument, about 640 B.C., an enormous mastiff[8] is figured; and according to Sir H. Rawlinson (as I was informed at the British Museum), similar dogs are still imported into this same country. I have looked through the magnificent works of Lepsius and Rosellini, and ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... smokes a battery—go and take it.' Do we issue specific instructions to the troops about the women, the children, the chickens, the forage, the mules-persons or property—whom they encounter? The circumstances and the exigencies of the situation determine their conduct. A household mastiff who will pin a rebel by the throat when he passes his kennel, flying from pursuit, is just as serviceable as would prove a loyal bullet sped to the rebel's brain. I believe that the acknowledged fact, the necessary fact, that wherever our army advances, emancipation ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... deep lower jaw, strong legs and neck, semi-hanging ears, truncated tail, and frequent presence of a fifth toe, distinguish the noble Mastiff. They are silent, phlegmatic dogs, conscious of their own strength, seem to consider themselves more as companions than servants, are resolute, and face danger with the utmost self-possession. A cold region, such as the highest ranges of Central Asia, is best adapted to their perfect development, ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... wander, less reputably, for their livelihoods. She remembered that even in those days Thady was always her ally, and had lamed himself for life by a fall on the road when running to rescue her from the Hutchinsons' wicked mastiff, who had knocked her down near their gate, and was standing over her with a growl and a grin of which she still sometimes dreamed. And again she remembered how once she had been laid up for a long while with the fever, and had crept out of the Union infirmary ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... fellows." Gazing at the speaker, whom I had not before recognised among the boarders, I beheld one whose countenance I knew. Yes! I had no doubt about the matter, he was Captain Roderick Trunnion. At his heels followed a huge mastiff, who growled fiercely as his master was addressing us. Whether or not Captain Roderick recognised Harry or me, we neither of us ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... even by the urchins who followed him in the street; so I am showing him no disrespect, gentleman though he is, by giving him a title which as completely characterized him in those days, as did his moody ways, his quaint attire and the persistence with which he kept at his side his great mastiff, Rudge. I had long since heard of the old gentleman as one of the most interesting residents of the precinct. I had even seen him more than once on the avenue, but I had never before been brought face to face with him, and consequently had much too superficial ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... it only a month ago. I threw a pinch of it into a basin of milk and gave it to a powerful mastiff. He drank the milk and in ten ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... holidays, but up to this time she had received no poetical epistles nor direct proposals, and was as cheerful and heart-free as the birds that sang around her windows. Her father was the traditional guardian of beauty, surly as the mastiff that watched his sacks of flour and his hoard of thalers; and though he doted on his darling Katrine, his heart to all the world beside seemed to be only a chip from one of his old mill-stones. When Carl thought of the severe gray eyes that shot such ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... store door, and bark, run back, and, from a distance, watch the hollow dark within, as if a vague enemy lived there, mocking his obedient nature and keeping his mistress captive. Turk was a setter with mastiff mixing, worth a little for the hunt and more for the watch, but as an ornament and friend worth more than all; he was so impartial in his favors as to like Aunt Hominy and Vesta about equally, and often slept in the kitchen ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... worthy friend, Dandie Dinmont, were sleeping. It was Bertram who wakened first. There was a strong smell of burning in the room. From the window he could see a crowded boat-load of men landing at the little harbour, and in the yard below a huge mastiff was ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... that he should have bowels for the poor, so he can secure for his family the odd trick. Or should some show of respect, for what is termed with ignorant ostentation an Englishman's birth-right, be expedient to bubble the gruff mastiff that he has to lead by the nose, he can make an empty show, very safely, by giving his single voice, and suffering his light squadron to file off to the other side. And when a question of humanity is agitated, he may dip a sop in the milk of human kindness, ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... quote one more passage. From the subject of horses he passes to that of dogs and their occasional reversion to wildness, when the mastiff or cur, the "faithful" house-dog by day, takes to sheep-killing by night. As a rule he is exceedingly cunning, committing his depredations at a distance frown home, and after getting his fill of slaughter he sneaks home in ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... having given his estate as security to the Lombards and extortioners in order to raise the sum, remained, without a penny in the world, awaiting her lord in a poor lodging in the town, without a carpet to sit upon, but proud as the Queen of Sheba and brave as a mastiff who defends the property of his master. Seeing this great distress the seneschal went delicately to request this lady's daughter to be the godmother of the said Egyptian, in order that he might have the right of assisting the Lady of Azay. And, in fact, he kept a heavy chain ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... saw a great castle, which was the fairest of the castles of the world. And when they came before the castle, they beheld a vast flock of sheep. And upon the top of a mound there was a herdsman keeping the sheep. And a rug made of skins was upon him, and by his side was a shaggy mastiff, larger than a steed ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... a mad dog, frothing at the mouth, has passed this way, going west. Officers have gone in pursuit of the animal, but passers-by may encounter the dog before the officers do. The dog is a huge English mastiff, without collar. ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... a long-lived animal. Individuals have been known of the age of fifty years. The cubs when first born are not much larger than the puppies of a mastiff. The people of Kamtschatka hunt this species with great assiduity, and obtain from it many of the comforts and necessaries of life. The skins are used for their beds and coverlets, for their caps, gloves, and boots. They manufacture from it harness for their dogs. From the intestines ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... all things fashionable with her departure from London in the height of the season. The crumpled linen hat she wore was designed for comfort and not for elegance. Her gown of brown holland was simplicity itself. She sat carelessly with her arm round the neck of an immense mastiff who had ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... any language but his own. Although of a brutal, almost idiotic type, he was loudly eulogized by his master as the model of fidelity and usefulness. Bourgonef treated him with gentleness, though with a certain imperiousness; much as one might treat a savage mastiff which it was necessary to dominate without exasperating. He more than once spoke of Ivan as a living satire on physiognomists and phrenologists; and as I am a phrenologist, I listened ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... dogs were "Turk" and "Linda," the former a beautiful mastiff and the latter a soft-eyed, gentle, good-tempered St. Bernard. "Mrs. Bouncer," a Pomeranian, came next, a tiny ball of white fluffy fur, who came as a special gift to me, and speedily won her way by her grace and daintiness into the affections ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... of the terrier. The master received their boisterous salutations with a variety of imitations from his own throat, when the dogs, probably from shame of being outdone, ceased their out- cry. One stately, powerful mastiff, who wore round his neck a brass collar, with M. T. engraved in large letters on the rim, alone was silent. He walked majestically, amid the confusion, to the side of the Judge, where, receiving ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... now they paused at some handsome iron gates. These were opened by a neatly dressed woman, who courtesied to Mr. Hartrick, and glanced with curiosity at Nora. The carriage bowled rapidly down a long avenue, and drew up before a front door. A large mastiff rose slowly, wagged his tail, and sniffed at Nora's dress as ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... already beyond Billy's control and dragging the lad helplessly after him with the evident determination to interview the strangers more closely. The animal, although not yet fully grown, had developed into a magnificent specimen of his kind, as big as a mastiff and about twice as powerful. To hold him when I hurriedly relieved Billy of his charge taxed my strength to such an extent that I was obliged to shout to the workers to quit work and get into hiding at a safe distance; but, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... this flagon of oil, this loaf of bread, this piece of rope, and this broom. When you reach the witch's house, oil the hinges of the door with the contents of the flagon, and throw the loaf of bread to the great fierce mastiff, who will come to meet you. When you have passed the dog, you will see in the courtyard a miserable woman trying in vain to let down a bucket into the well with her plaited hair. You must give her the ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... "the god-like face of the First Consul." What god does he most resemble? Mars, Bacchus, or Apollo? or the god Serapis who, flying (as Egyptian chronicles deliver) from the fury of the dog Anubis (the hieroglyph of an English mastiff), lighted on Monomotapa (or the land of apes), by some thought to be Old France, and there set up a tyranny, &c. Our London prints of him represent him gloomy and sulky, like an angry Jupiter. I hear that he is very small, even ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... said Dick, looking up from his bone, with an expression much like that of a mastiff when engaged at ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... nature, incapable of being in deadly earnest, which his splendid antagonist at all times was. His encounter, therefore, with Mrs. Lee presented the distressing spectacle of an old, toothless, mumbling mastiff, fighting for the household to which he owed allegiance against a young leopardess fresh from the forests. Every touch from her, every velvety pat, drew blood. And something comic mingled with what my mother felt to be paramount tragedy. ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... when summarily kicked out. That night, late as twelve o'clock, Mrs. Ray, aroused by the infantile demands of the fourth of the olive branches, and further disturbed by the suspicious growlings and challenge of old Tonto, Blake's veteran mastiff, peeped from the second story window and plainly saw two forms in soldier overcoats at the back fence, and wondered what the sentries found about Blake's quarters to require so much attention. Then she became aware of a third form, rifle-bearing, ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... sort of grim hilarity on his face. I thought he looked hardly human; however, he was human enough to tell us the way; and presently we found ourselves in the little bare parlour. Presently the door opened, and in came a superannuated mastiff, followed by an old gentleman very like Miss Bronte, who shook hands with us, and then went to call his daughter. A long interval, during which we coaxed the old dog, and looked at a picture of Miss Bronte, ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... other little pictures upon the sides of big express wagons—two horses, one white and the other bay, galloping very free in an open field, their manes and tails flying, or a bulldog, very savage, sitting upon a green and black safe, or the head of a mastiff with a spiked ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... unkindly, although the speaker had thrown his lower jaw forward as if to pronounce the word "pup" with a humorous suggestion of a mastiff. Before Clarence could make up his mind if the epithet was insulting or not, the man put out his stirruped foot, and, with a gesture of invitation, said, ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... carried a small black bag in one hand and a worn hat in the other. If he had any idea of airing a professional protest at being compelled to wait upon the police, the thought vanished as his eye took in the stupendous stature of Superintendent Merrington, who towered above him like a mastiff ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... regretfully, "that they could all be the same sort of half-breeds—to make them more uniform as to size and style. With Kid and Spot part pointer, Irish and Rover part setter, Jack McMillan verging on the mastiff, and all the rest of them part something else, don't you think it looks the least little bit as if we had picked them ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... this, the lawn's velvet was exquisitely spotted with sheep—a considerable flock of which roamed about the vale, in company with three tamed deer, and a vast number of brilliantly—plumed ducks. A very large mastiff seemed to be in vigilant attendance upon these ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... he shakes the snow from his coat like a St. Bernard mastiff, perches his cap on the head of the plaster Niobe that adorns my chimney-piece, and lays aside the folio which he had been carrying under his arm. I, in the meanwhile, have wheeled an easy-chair to the fire, brought out a bottle ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... men looked up as the boys approached. All of them seemed to be grinning, as though amused. But while the big man really looked somewhat as a mastiff might appear to a little terrier, his two companions had a sneer on their dark, evil faces that gave ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... having got into the back yard cannot get out again. She is in a Quandary, for she fears the dogs will bite her—though their chains are not long enough. Keeper, the mastiff, is a noble fellow, and would not hurt women or children; neither would Nero, the bull-dog; he would rather face a lion or a wild ox: whilst Snap, the terrier, barks and snarls in the company of his ...
— The Royal Picture Alphabet • Luke Limner
... his face. He did not say a word, but his men shouted hoarsely around Blicky. He walked a few paces to and fro with hands strongly clenched, his lips slightly parted, showing teeth close-shut like those of a mastiff. He looked eager, passionate, cunning, hard as steel, and that strange brightness of elation slowly shaded to a dark, brooding menace. Suddenly he wheeled ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... more thou mastiff, get you all gone, And let my soul sleep. [Aside to Balthazar] There's gold, peace, see ...
— The Noble Spanish Soldier • Thomas Dekker
... white men, nearly as bronzed as their savage comrades, completed the group. One, a desperate-looking outlaw, Jonathan did not know. The blond-bearded giant in the center was Legget. Steel-blue, inhuman eyes, with the expression of a free but hunted animal; a set, mastiff-like jaw, brutal and coarse, individualized him. The last man was the ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... neck; nay, the playful minx was utterly dead to the condition of her brother who stood there, ashamed to look any one in the face, if he was not rather like an exhumed corpse; and we would not be far out if we said that she even laughed as she saw the curmudgeon staring like an angry mastiff at the brother she loved so well. But then, was she not an eccentric thing, driven hither and thither by vagrant impulses, and with thoughts in her head which ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... showing even ordinary civilities. That night I made the acquaintance of his dog "Ring," said to be the best hunting dog in Colorado, with the body and legs of a collie, but a head approaching that of a mastiff, a noble face with a wistful human expression, and the most truthful eyes I ever saw in an animal. His master loves him if he loves anything, but in his savage moods ill-treats him. "Ring's" devotion ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... John Stokes never saw Mrs. Deborah Thornby but he saluted her, pretty much as his mastiff accosted her favourite cat; erected his bristles, looked at her with savage bloodshot eyes, showed his teeth, and vented a sound something between a snarl and a growl; whilst she, (like the fourfooted tabby,) set up her back and ...
— Aunt Deborah • Mary Russell Mitford
... storms of old,— Will Harvest, who could haul the ropes and fight All day, and sing a foc'sle song to cheer Sea-weary hearts at night; brave old Tom Moone The carpenter, whose faithful soul looked up To Drake's large mastery with a mastiff's eyes; And three-score trusty mariners, all scarred And weather-beaten. After these there came Some two-score gentleman adventurers, Gay college lads or lawyers that had grown Sick of the dusty ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... The mastiff bowled at village door, The oaks were shattered on the green; Woe was the hour, for nevermore That hapless Countess e'er ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... in the days I remembered, and not more troubled with their work: their outer raiment lay on the road-side in an orderly pile under the guardianship of a six-year-old boy, who had his arm thrown over the neck of a big mastiff, who was as happily lazy as if the summer-day had been made for him alone. As I eyed the pile of clothes, I could see the gleam of gold and silk embroidery on it, and judged that some of these workmen had tastes akin to those of the Golden Dustman ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... the shock of this unspeakable and incomparable verse, and find in the passage which contains it an echo or a trace of the "music, wit, and oracle" of Shakespeare. But in those days I had yet to learn what manner of ears are pricked up to listen "when rank Thersites opes his mastiff jaws" in criticism of Homer or of Shakespeare. In a corner of the preface to an edition of "Shakspere" which bears on its title-page the name (correctly spelt) of Queen Victoria's youngest son prefixed to the name I have just transcribed, a ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... whistled drawlingly and in a moment the gigantic mastiff dashed among the camels. Seeing the children he leaped towards them. From joy he overturned Nell who extended her hands to him; he reared himself on Stas; afterwards whining and barking he ran round both a few times, again overturned Nell, again reared himself on Stas, and finally ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... a regular pursuit, one is surprised at the queer places in which he finds them. I recollect ferreting seven full-sized Rats from under the floor of a built dog kennel not above four yards square, where a large mastiff and a terrier dog slept every night, only a 3/4-inch board dividing them from the Rats, and the Rats having eaten holes through the boards in the kennel! I have also found at an out-house an old bitch Rat and nine young ones in an old tin trunk without a lid. I have also caught Rats and taken young ...
— Full Revelations of a Professional Rat-catcher - After 25 Years' Experience • Ike Matthews
... chatter'd above the corpse, The owl sang funeral lay, The twisting worm pass'd over her face, And it writhed and turn'd away. The jackdaws caw'd at the body dead, Expos'd on the churchyard stones, They wagg'd their tails in scorn of her flesh, And turn'd up their bills at her bones. The convent mastiff trotting along, Sniff'd hard at the mortal leaven, Then bristled his hair at her brimstone smell, And howl'd out his fears to heaven. Then the jackdaw screech'd his joy, That he spurn'd the royal feast, And keen'd all night to the grievous owl, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... Benjie came behind me, while, pushing the door wide open with the muzzle, as I held my finger at the tricker, I cried, "Stand or be shot"; when young Cursecowl's big ugly mastiff-dog, with the bare mutton bone in its teeth, bolted through between my legs like a fury, and with such a force as to heel me over on the braid of my back, while I went a dunt on the causey that made the gun go ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... on whom or what? small Village Curs? The barking of a Mastiff wou'd unman thee. [Offers ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn |
